Mr. Speaker, I completely support what we have just heard from the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. What we have been forced to see is bill after bill, and those of us who have practised at all in the law who are watching recent court proceedings have a grand sense of misgiving that the legislation that has come before us has not been adequately scrutinized.

I am not going to put myself in a position that the hon. government House leader wants us to of making any personal aspersions toward any individual. However, I actually attempted to raise this as a point of order. I certainly appreciate that the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre made it a question of personal privilege. I also feel that my personal privileges have been violated by having legislation brought to this place that clearly has not taken into account the charter implications.

I raised this on March 7, 2012 on the subject of the omnibus crime bill, so-called Bill C-10, because we just had seen the Ontario Superior Court rule on the matter of R. v. Smikle, and it was quite clear that the legislation before us might be, in fact, non-compliant with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is an offence to all of our roles, individually, severally and as a body, to have legislation brought before us forced through by majority vote, which is a disservice to the people of Canada and a disservice to our traditions of law and respect for the rule of law by having legislation here that has not been thoroughly reviewed to ensure its constitutionality.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this opportunity to support the question of privilege that has been raised and to subscribe myself to it. My personal privileges have been violated.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the comments from my hon. friend across the way on two specific points.

One point is on the immediacy with which my friend from Winnipeg brought this motion forward. As was explained in his motion, if the government House leader had been listening, the complexity of this particular case gave reason. He had brought that reason forward, both in his motion and I believe in dealings with the table, to express that this was as quickly as we could bring the research together around this particular point of privilege.

The second point is that it was with some irony that in his argument against this point of privilege, the hon. government House leader then brought another time allocation motion into this House. I would suggest it was somewhat out of order, in that we were dealing with a motion of privilege. It is somewhat ironic that after talking about the openness, transparency and decency of their government, the Conservatives then shut down debate in Parliament again on another piece of legislation, having just minutes ago voted time allocation on another separate bill.

Lastly, in the debate on the last time allocation motion 45 minutes or an hour ago, the Minister of Public Safety made it quite clear—and I seek, Mr. Speaker, that you check the blues on this point—that he had no concern for lawyers and judges when he was designing policy, and that the concerns of courts and those who seek guidance from the legal profession as to whether they are valid or not or whether they can stand a charter challenge or not are not a concern to him as the Minister of Public Safety.

Also of grave concern—and we can submit them to my hon. friend across the way—are all of the pieces of legislation that the government has introduced that have been struck down by the courts because the Conservatives had not vetted the legislation. This is at great cost to the Canadian taxpayer, never mind to those people who are affected by legislation that locks them up, essentially illegally, while the courts move through the government bills that are not to be applied and judges then have to wrestle with badly written pieces of legislation.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the prima facie case of privilege that we are seeking from you is to say that members of Parliament on all sides are addressing pieces of legislation that have not been properly vetted for their ability to stand a charter challenge; that the debate that takes place in this House is encumbered by the fact that the government is choosing to ignore and not solicit the advice of all those legal minds in the Department of Justice, which we pay for, to give that very advice to allow Canadians to see legislation that actually does what it is required to do rather than play politics with the legislation, as has too often been the case.

If the Conservatives were not playing politics, one would assume that they would seek to make their legislation charter-proof. They do not. This is a problem that faces the House because we are constantly encumbered by legislation that is dealing with something that cannot survive a charter challenge. Therefore, the debate enters into some realm of fiction and partisanship that does not allow for actual improvement of the law and the lives of Canadians.

I would offer to my friend across the way, the House leader for the government, that we did bring this motion of privilege forward expeditiously. I think the member from Winnipeg made his case soundly and succinctly with good research and backing as to why this is a problem. While this is a challenge for you as Speaker to determine whether it is prima facie, I very much look forward to the contribution that the Minister of Justice will make in this case.

I would suggest to the House leader for the government that he has upped the ante in this by somehow suggesting that the Minister of Justice is now breaking his oaths and that this was an attack on him personally. We look at this as a direct contribution to the further erosion of Parliament's ability to do its job on behalf of Canadians. If government members seek to somehow make this a personal case against the Minister of Justice and the oaths that he has taken as a barrister and solicitor, that is their choice. It was not mentioned by my friend from Winnipeg. It was not mentioned by the official opposition. Therefore, that is a choice for him to make. However, I would ask him not to bring that into the debate, but it is not in my power to discern what he thinks is valid or not.

Mr. Speaker, on a prima facie case of privilege, this is something that I think bears your consideration. Obviously, it looks like we will hear from the Minister of Justice and we can move forward.

For heaven's sake, one would think that a bare minimum requirement of being the Government of Canada would be to introduce laws that would actually stand a test by the charter and bill of rights of this country.

Mr. Speaker, privilege is indeed a very serious matter. We appreciate the manner in which the member for Winnipeg Centre has brought it forward.

This is an issue of which we have had the opportunity to respond to in the past, and the member for Mount Royal will be representing the party tomorrow with his presentation on this motion of privilege in more detail.

Having said that, I think that it is very important for us to recognize that we are talking about government legislation that comes before the House and that there is an obligation for the government to do its homework to ensure that it does abide by and fall within the charter, which is in essence what the member for Winnipeg Centre is talking about. This is of critical importance.

Whether the leader of the Liberal Party or the member for Mount Royal, we have stood in this place and attempted to address this particular issue in the past. I have personally raised the issue in regard to legislation on refugees and other immigration legislation that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism had brought forward.

This is a very serious issue. The member for Mount Royal will be addressing this motion of privilege tomorrow on behalf of the Liberal Party.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

It being 5:45 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading the bill now before the House.